In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about glory and love, and what he says is the opposite of what people think. Most people think that glory means the esteem of others and people admire those who pursue the four Pernicious Ps: power, possessions, pleasure and prestige. But in our Gospel, we see that true glory is enjoyed only by those who embrace the cross, living lives of sacrificial love. 

Our passage begins with Judas going out to cut a deal with Jesus’ adversaries, so it is clear that all of Jesus’ words about glory are spoken in the shadow of the cross. “When Judas had left them, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified with him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself…'” 

So Jesus’ glory is the fruit of his sacrifice. But then he makes two further — unexpected — connections between glory and sacrifice, which is very appropriate for this Mass in which we install Joshua Osborn as an acolyte, the last ministry that our seminarians receive prior to ordination to the diaconate. 

1) Jesus’ cross glorifies his Father. Why? Because by embracing this cross as his Father’s will for him, he is obeying his Father and thus honors his Father. We experience this in our own families: when children obey their parents, they honor them, when they disobey them, they dishonor them. When we don’t do what God asks of us, we dishonor him. 

2) Jesus’ cross glorifies us. By sacrificing his son, God, whom we should honor, honors us. That is the most astounding thing about glory: even for God, glory is the fruit of sacrifice. In the incarnation, God humbles himself, taking on our broken human condition in order to set us free from the power of sin and death. 

But he doesn’t just want our appreciation: he wants our love! God’s glory is most clearly revealed in Jesus writhing in agony on the cross, having sacrificed everything out of love for us: powerless, no longer possessing even his clothing, thoroughly degraded. Love that we in no way deserve, love that offers us a share in his glory.

In the second half of our Gospel reading, Jesus tells us that he is looking for the same love from us in return, which is where our greatest glory lies too. “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” 

Jesus loved us without any thought of personal benefit for himself and since that’s how he has loved us, that’s how he commands us to love others — without any thought of personal benefit. Notice, this is not merely a recommendation! He says, “I give you a new commandment!” 

In this regard, I would like to point out something we often overlook regarding Jesus and regarding our own relationships, namely, that he loves us with understanding. Jesus knew in advance who would betray him, who would deny him and who would abandon him; .he accepted these men just as they were, defects and all and when the time came, he forgave them. 

He knows all the same things about us. If Jesus wanted to recruit 12 men with the finest human qualities, he had a lot of better options than the coarse men he chose for his inner circle. That’s how we are to love too. Without making distinction of persons and always ready to forgive because we know our own need for forgiveness too. 

This is especially true regarding forgiveness within families. As they say, you can pick your friends, but not your family, like it or not. And the love that is too proud to forgive or to seek forgiveness will wither and die. The people we hurt the most are often the people whom we love the most, and it is doubly tragic when our pride keeps us from humbling ourselves and seeking forgiveness from them. That was the real tragedy in Judas’ life; it was also Peter’s saving grace.

“This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”   

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily May 18.

When we want to reassure someone that they will be kept safe, we say, “You’re in good hands.” 

And as we see from today’s Gospel, Jesus knows that we have that need to be kept safe from all that could harm us. He uses the image of the Good Shepherd caring for his sheep to remind us that he will protect us amid all the dangers we face in life. 

Regarding the sheep, he says: “No one can take them out of my hand….and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.” In other words, we’re in good hands with Jesus, and this is the Gospel that those who we will install in the ministry of Lector today as part of their seminary formation will proclaim.

But then, look around. If we’re in such good hands, why do the sheep still suffer and die? Jesus says of the sheep, “they shall never perish.” But indeed they do. There are natural disasters — the insurance companies even call them “acts of God” — deadly tornados and earthquakes kill many innocent people every year. 

Where is God when illness strikes or a drunk driver takes a life? Or when people feel so depressed and burdened that they despair of life? The answer is twofold:

1) We live in an imperfect world. Suffering is not a sign of God’s lack of concern. And by the way, good things happen to bad people too — how fair is that? 

We live in a broken world and so we are vulnerable to being wounded by a world still very much in need of redemption. And our own bodies are subject to the laws of physical decline and death. That’s just the way it is. We’re not in paradise yet. After all, sheep are not pets. The reason shepherds keep sheep is so that they can be shorn of their wool for our benefit and eventually butchered for our nourishment. 

We aren’t the Lord’s pets, we’re the sheep of his flock. That’s why we call the Church on earth “The Church Militant.” Here we struggle and the Lord uses the adversities we face for his own, often hard to figure out, purposes. 

Jesus is not offering us an insurance policy against all suffering. The hands of God will not automatically protect us against disasters or thieves or illness. Our wool will be sheared off by life, and one day we will die.

2) If this is the case, how is it that we can say that we are in good hands? The answer is that God is always with us. He holds our hand as we go through all the ups and downs of life. No matter what adversity we come up against, even our own death or the death of a loved one, nothing will separate us from him. 

Even if we try to push him away because we are angry about some injustice to which we have been exposed, he’s still there by our side throughout the shearing of our wool. Nothing can take us out of Jesus’ hand, which is at the same time the Father’s hand because he says, “The Father and I are one.”

Jesus himself faced rejection, betrayal, torture and death at the hands of evil men, and though his Father was with him through it all, he died a cruel death just the same. But the hand of the Father was holding Jesus’ hand as the nail pierced his flesh and secured him to the cross, and the Father was still holding his hand when that hand went limp in death. It was also by the strong hand of God that Jesus rose three days later and now he sits at the Father’s right hand in glory.

The same is true for us when we face challenges that feel overwhelming and calamities that seem to come from nowhere. Being in the hands of God doesn’t protect us from the vagaries of life, but it makes all the difference in the world when we have to deal with adversity. 

Jesus tells us that he has come to give his sheep eternal life and that we shall never perish — meaning that even though death occurs, it has no lasting power over us. If you are looking for a shepherd able to support you in time of suffering and guide you through the final passage to the next life, then Jesus is all you really need. 

You are in good hands when you take hold of the hand of our Good Shepherd. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily May 11.